'Naming Myself' By Barbara Kingsolver: Poem Analysis

Poetry has always been a mirror to see unseen emotions and to hear unheard thoughts. Magical words used in an artistic way allows the reader to feel what the poet is feeling, to listen what the poet is listening and to share what the poet is going through. The two poems “I’m Nobody! Who are You?” by Emily Dickinson, and “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar are two classical works of poetry. While Dunbar shares agonizing experience of an entire community, Dickinson shares her thoughts about individual characteristic and personality; in fact, she cleverly wins the case of an introvert. Both these poems are independent of each other in terms of thought as well as from literary perspective.

Prompt: Write a unified essay in which you relate the imagery of the last stanza to the speaker’s view of himself earlier in the poem and to his view of how others see poets.

Poem Evaluation: “what the mirror said” The poem “what the mirror said”, written by Lucille Clifton, acts as an inspiring, motivational poem for women. While trying to convince the woman looking into the mirror that she is important, trying to help her capture her inner beauty, and helping the subject realize her worth in the world as an individual, the poet builds a theme of personal perception. The notions of beauty, worth and uniqueness, and complexity in “what the mirror said”, are emphasized through metaphors, symbolism, repetition, and spacious stanzas. There are always multiple perceptions on what poetry is trying to portray, which is part of the fun of poetry analysis.

n the introduction of the poem the writer mentions that the poem is meant to relate to the speakers experience with encountering nature. With much thought into this idea, could you not say that you could relate this poem to the experience of the way society is changing today. In our lives we get use to certain people that we could never "unnoticed" them, but there are a couple of others that we may not even bother with or notice they are there. In the first stanza they question the appearance of the fellow and in reality that may be them questioning the appearance of some people in their lives.

Have you ever read the poem “ Identity”? It has a very deep meaning about freedom. It pretty much says throughout the whole poem that some people would rather be free than controlled and secluded. I think that no one wants to be limited to one place.

The main theme in this poem is that one's ways or personality cannot be remade by someone. People can imitate what a person does or how a person acts, but they will never be able to replicate it one hundred percent. The speaker in this poem talks about how when someone dies their personality will be lost forever because it cannot be reperformed by someone else, not even their closest friends or family members. “Imitators and descendants aren’t the same.” (Line 14) A person can be near someone for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks in a year and still not be them exactly. When someone dies, there will be glimpses of them in others that they have touched through their actions, but they will never fully see them in just one single person. They work on making the most perfect personality for themselves throughout their entire life just to see that when they die it dies with them. When someone works this hard on something they do not want it to end. They make people happy by using it, they help people by using

William Stafford’s poem “Ask Me” is a short poem which consists of two stanzas which narrates his life through contemplation of his past. It is a reflection of his life where he embraces the experiences he went through. Stafford’s intent is to have the reader question and recollect on their own life pushing them to realize that it is a person’s personality that is substantive. He points out that a person is defined by their relationship with themselves and how this shapes the world around them. The tone of this poem has an important impact by setting the momentum within the first two lines. Through the use of inquisitive language it entices readers to analyze how a person’s worth is not defined by physical and tangible accomplishments however, by their personal values and morals.

Identity is about perception, the way someone sees themselves and their surroundings, the set of rules that they follow, their morals, the decisions they make, the way they look and the way they think. This is shaped by their location and experiences, as well as by other humans. Identity is represented in many ways through poetry, music, books, paintings and other mediums. Bruce Dawe represents the identity of two very different types of people in his poems "Homo Suburbiensis" and "Drifters" where he represents the identity of his subjects through more of a specific description of a certain set of people and not any person in particular in an informative tone , while Dorothea Mackellar focuses more on her own identity in her poem, "My

“From the sphere of my own experience I can bring to my recollection three persons of no every-day powers and acquirements, who had read the poems of others with more and more unallayed pleasure, and had thought more highly of their authors, as poets; who yet have confessed to me, that from no modern work had so many passages started up anew in their minds at different times, and as different occasions had awakened a meditative mood.” (2) (paragraph 31).

Throughout life every individual has moments where they question who they are and what they stand for. In middle school and high school, we develop who we are, and then as an adult we continue to define ourselves based on our decisions. To answer the question many people look back to their memories to guide them, as the speaker does in the poem “To Myself.” W.S. Merwin addresses this and reminds himself and the audience that only you can define who you are throughout his poem utilizing various literary techniques.

Hi y’all my name’s Cooper. Do you enjoy the simple things in life? Then I’m the perfect match for you.

poem is not merely a static, decorative creation, but that it is an act of communication between the poet and

'"Which hyperbolic poet", Shakespeare asks, "which most-sayer, can exceed this sublime truism, that 'you alone are you'. For you comprise the only things which, in honesty, you can be compared with"'.

It is human nature to interpret and reinterpret life and find meaning of one’s place in the world. Without such knowledge, or belief for that matter, any possibility of humanity is lost. Hence, humans are plagued with the necessity to interpret themselves and their connections to their surroundings—both human and physical. Because one’s connections and contexts for interpretation are endless in some sense, humans are inherently a divided self—the culmination of all given interpretations they make for themselves and interpretations from others. In addition, this totality of interpretations through the lens selves as being what is around you, it follows that poetic-rhetorical language is necessary in discussion of the divided self.

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”